CALIFORNIAN: New Music for March 8-14, 2012

Aside from building memorable melodies and clever one-liners, Merritt's biggest talent may be his brevity. None of the songs breaks three minutes, yet he can craft a fully formed, murderous world in "Your Girlfriend's Face," declaring, "I've taken a contract out on y'all for making me feel incredibly small."

Though most of the album elegantly centers on spare, electro-pop, the most memorable track is "All She Cares About Is Mariachi," where Merritt invents a new electro-Mariachi genre to charmingly match his lyrics.

"Love at the Bottom of the Sea" may not have the depth or the ambition of the "69 Love Songs" cycle, but it certainly delivers a good time.

---- Scripps McClatchy

ELECTRONIC

"Parastrophics"

Three stars

Mouse on Mars

Monkeytown

Mouse on Mars has been around since 1993. Pretty good for a German post-everything duo that once specialized in trendy niche stuff like jungle. The only thing more remarkable than this pair's endurance in an ever-shifting electronic universe is how restless, warm, and consistently inventive Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have been.

After genre experiments that found MoM dabbling in future-funk ("Glam"), electro-pop ("Radical Connector"), and noise-techno ("Varcharz"), "Parastrophics" is more of a giddy pastiche, one that finds the duo rummaging through the diverse fields of electronic music, past and present, while creating melodies that stay strong and certain. There are dense, tense moments, as in the stormy weather-house music of "Polaroyced" and the drone of "Syncropticians." "Parastrophics," however, leans more toward blips, beeps, and Kraftwerk-ian pulses to make its point through the Polynesian lilt of "Baku Hipster" and the joyfully jumpy "They Know Your Name."

For Toma and St. Werner, electronic music is far from cold and calculated. Their sound is messily fleshy and crowded, fuzzy rather than fussy. To quote its electronic godfathers the Human League, Mouse on Mars is only human.

---- Scripps McClatchy

COUNTRY

"Let It Burn"

Three stars

Ruthie Foster

Blue Corn

Ruthie Foster wrote only three of the 13 songs on her new album ---- two of them being gospel numbers on which she is backed by the Blind Boys of Alabama. But "Let It Burn's" canny selection of covers highlights Foster's strengths as a powerful and often soul-stirring vocalist and a striking interpreter.

Mostly, Foster reaches back for material. She duets with soul veteran William Bell on his "You Don't Miss Your Water," offers a supremely moving take on the Band's "It Makes No Difference," and joins again with the Blind Boys for David Crosby's "Long Time Gone." But she also goes contemporary with Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" and the Black Keys' "Everlasting Light."

In some cases, Foster turns the songs inside out, refreshing familiar material with new arrangements while remaining true to it and maintaining her cohesive vision. The up-tempo Johnny Cash hit "Ring of Fire" becomes slow and simmering ---- a moody torch song, if you will. Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer" likewise is slowed down and spellbinding: Built on piano, bass, and sax, it becomes less a folk anthem and more a deeply personal statement of purpose.